GENERATION ALPHA CASE STUDY

To enhance my learning of Generation Alpha, I carried out an anonymous primary research interview with 7 children

. I am fortunate enough to have a relative who works alongside youth aged 4-9 and I provided them with questions concerning their fashion choices, environmental problems and what they would like to be when they grow up, for example.

I chose a variety of questions, many of which I had to simplify in order to accommodate the ages and to get the best answers from them. My aim was to gain a thorough and dependable source of understanding of Generation Alpha’s characteristics and to analyse if these complemented what I found in my secondary research.

I intend for this case study to benefit me in informing the development of customer and marketing strategies for my Visual Campaign as well as the propositions, branding and promotional tactics.

My primary research found a correlation between children using social media platforms of YouTube and TikTok, and gaming platforms of Minecraft and Roblox when playing on their technology devices. Honestly, I wasn’t overly surprised by these answers as these are what I played on as a child too, apart from TikTok. Nonetheless, TikTok has took over social media exponentially and has succumbed all age groups to its interface in recent years, so I expected this answer the most! This research highly corresponded with what I discerned online, and as digital natives, Generation Alpha know no different than growing up with iPads and mobile phones.

I did depict a trend between the children watching creators like Prestonplayz and MrBeast, however, and I had to research into both of these as I had not heard of them before.

My findings discovered that a lot of their content was based on YouTube and received millions of views, proving they are succeeding with this current generation of youth. I was significantly interested in my findings for MrBeast who is a YouTube personality star, entrepreneur, and philanthropist which is“a person who helps the poor, especially by giving them money” (Cambridge Dictionary, 2023). The 24-year-old pioneered a content genre focusing on expensive stunts, challenges, and donations, the more popular he gets, the more he gives away (Monaghan, 2023).

My prior research shown that Generation Alpha have a greater awareness of important matters and have a caring nature to want to do something about them. MrBeast’s platform bears content which intrigues the digital aspects of Gen Alpha, whilst also teaching them to do the right thing.

I feel this is further demonstrated in the responses I received regarding the environment and how they could help the world.

Many of the children mentioned littering, recycling, and stopping pollution through not putting rubbish near the oceans. A couple also responded by saying they wanted to stop the wars and fighting amongst countries.

This shown to me that children are highly exposed to what is going on around them and it causes them concern from an early age. Their responses shown a responsibility which was comparable to my secondary research in that they feel empowered to act on these issues and reverse the damage of past generations. They are already implementing measures in stopping littering and handing down clothing to siblings or charity shops. Isn’t this enough? Should they be as susceptible to ongoing difficulties like wars and crises at such a ripe age? I don’t agree with this, and it further pushes my campaign reasoning for this Generation wanting a form of escapism and a voice to project their fears they have been raised with.

One male child mentioned his aspirations to be an artist. Looking at my project and how I want to incorporate the arts, in some approach, I feel the youth will be more fascinated by innovative and alternative productions of imagery and film.

This drives me to continue my notion of injecting my authentic visual narrative into my final campaign photographs, gifting an original and abstract perception to fashion communication, which I believe they will appreciate.